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BRITAIN'S BLAIR CAUGHT IN G8 CLIMATE DILEMMA
By Jeremy Lovell
Reuters
June 16, 2005

http://tinyurl.com/8cmpy

LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair is trapped in a dilemma of his
own creation over saving the planet from global warming, analysts say.

Blair has put climate change at the heart of his year-long presidency of the
Group of Eight industrial nations, but his efforts to get radical action
agreed at next month's G8 summit in Scotland are being repeatedly torpedoed
by the United States.

Environmental campaigners say this leaves Blair with a stark choice --
either drop President Bush and get a strong agreement with the other G8
members or stay with him, get a weak deal and be blamed for missing a
crucial opportunity.

"There is a train wreck coming," said Jennifer Morgan, climate change expert
at the WWF.

"The twin targets of trying to get something done on climate change and
getting George Bush to sign up to it just don't go together," she told
Reuters.

"If Blair praises Bush on climate change on any account and Bush hasn't
moved at all, it will signal to the world that the Bush agenda on climate
change is OK."

It would be a painful choice for Blair who has made stopping climate change
a personal project but who has also identified himself closely with Bush and
the transatlantic alliance.

A leaked draft dated June 14 of the final communique due from the summit to
be held at the Gleneagles hotel near Edinburgh from July 6-8 reveals the
extent of efforts to keep the Americans on board.

There are no targets nor timetables for action to curb greenhouse gas
emissions, and all references in an earlier draft to dollar funds for
research have been removed.

An introductory paragraph has moved the statement "our world is warming"
into square brackets, meaning that even the phenomenon of climate change is
under question and that the wording may not appear in the final text.

LEAVING BUSH OUT

It has given the same treatment to a statement from the world's top
scientists that climate change is already under way and demands urgent
action.

Even a suggestion that the developed world has a duty of leadership in
combating global warming is given the square brackets brush-off.

"Blair and his advisers always knew exactly what the U.S. position was. But
the impression is that they really believed they could force a change," said
Friends of the Earth climate expert Catherine Pearce.

"Now they are starting to see that they have failed, but they don't seem to
have a Plan B," she added.

On Wednesday in parliament Blair was unrepentant.

"What is necessary is to ensure that we get a process in which the United
States are involved," he said.

WWF's Morgan said there was still a chance to get a strong deal to cut
carbon dioxide emissions but that if it didn't materialize then Blair and
the rest of the G8 should go ahead without the U.S. -- the world's biggest
greenhouse gas polluter.

"If you can't get something with Bush in it, then you shouldn't reduce it to
the lowest common denominator. You should move forward in other ways," she
said.

"There is a very heated debate going on right now about leaving Bush out in
the cold."

The leaked communique presents ample proof.

It has an entire section committing those countries that have signed the
Kyoto Protocol on cutting CO2 emissions to strengthening that deal, despite
the fact it has been rejected by Washington.

But as further evidence of Blair's dilemma, it too is in square brackets.

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Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
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